Scientifically-minded religious skeptics are
supposed to be willing to accept new evidence of an
afterlife, if any is ever found. But what could
really count as “evidence” of such a thing? In her
2016 slice-of-life drama Going to a Place Where
You Already Are, playwright Bekah
Brunstetter explores how an irreligious family is
disrupted by the impending death of one of its
members, who suddenly becomes convinced that she’s
going to a better place. She’s at peace, but the
others aren’t.

A
Repressed Need Comes to the Fore
The play opens with Roberta (Kathleen Ruhl) and her
husband, Joe (Art Fox) attending the funeral of
someone who barely even counted as an acquaintance.
They’ve come to pay their respects, but struggle not
to display any outward sign of contempt at the
speakers’ very sensual description of the spirit
world. Roberta also points out the Yogi Berra-style
logic of attending other peoples’ funerals so that
they’ll attend yours. But she becomes more bothered
by her own observation until she breaks down in
tears and confesses that there’s a part of her that
still desperately wants to believe in heaven.

Shortly later, while undergoing an MRI, Roberta has
a near-death experience. The MRI finds inoperable
late-stage cancer, but she truly isn’t scared. While
her brain was deprived of oxygen she met a
psychopomp (Colin Quinn Rice) who assured her that
everything would be alright, and she feels a sense
of peace that has only grown stronger since she woke
up. Joe struggles with this—he’s a scientist and
can’t separate the concept of an afterlife from the
god of the Old Testament or the oppression of
organized religion. But Roberta’s visions don’t end
there. She has another which addresses a major
source of pain in her past and convinces her not to
be reasoned out of believing what she sees is real.

Redtwist
Theatre’s Ensemble Builds a FamilyKathleen Ruhl’s
performance is endlessly charming, funny, and
empathetic. She covers a vast range, from
Roberta’s crises to her acceptance, suffused with
the character’s steadfast pragmatism. Roberta’s
confidence in her fate only makes her more
determined to wrap up all her loose ends, which
forces Joe and her step-granddaughter, Ellie (Abby
Dillion) to confront things they’d rather not. Art Fox’s cantankerous
performance matches Ruhl’s in charm and realism.
Their interplay as an old couple still in love
provides the show with a firm emotional foundation,
even as the rift between their characters grows.
After all, if Joe respects Roberta so much, why is
he so opposed to her enlightened attitude toward
mortality?

Brunstetter doesn’t attempt to tie everything neatly
together. A sub-plot involves Ellie’s relationship
with Jonas (Joel Rodriguez), a one-night stand she
develops feelings for that she is reluctant to
acknowledge because she is emotionally unavailable
and he is disabled. Jonas’s atheism is more
outwardly laid-back but anti-humanistic than Joe’s,
and Ellie’s ethical philosophy in general is more
fraught with guilt than Roberta’s. Under director
Matt Hawkins’s direction, their grappling with life
forms an important, but not intrusive addition to a
story mostly about grappling with death. Brunstetter
also doesn’t confirm whether Roberta had a real
vision or not. She certainly had an extremely
appealing one, filled not only with
vividly-described bodily pleasures, but also the
assurance that her biggest regret in life didn’t
really cause any harm. It seems more than a little
too-good-to-be-true, but nobody can deny that
Roberta is coping far better than anyone else is. It
seems that even a genuine belief in paradise doesn’t
make death much less complicated.

Most of you know that I adore the work at Redtwist
Theatre, that little “black box” on Bryn Mawr, where
they continue to bring strong drama in an intimate
setting. It is difficult not to, based on the work
they continue to bring to their stage. Currently,
they are presenting the Chicago premiere of a play
that was a huge success at South Coast Rep, “Going
To A Place Where You Already Are”, written by Bekah
Brunstetter. It is a story about an older couple, Roberta (the always
reliable Kathleen Ruhl) and Joe (deftly handled by
Art Fox), who have become atheists
questioning their beliefs and if in fact there might
be a heaven in their future.

When Roberta finds out that she has some medical
problems, and sees the “light” her ideals begin to
change and although Joe attempts to convince her
that there are no facts to substantiate the feelings
she is having, due to some memories of her past life
(before Joe), her thought process cannot be changed.
There are some hidden facts from this review, as
sharing them would take away from the power of the
story that Brunstetter presents. I will tell you
that there was a child in Roberta’s life and that
Roberta and Joe have a grand-daughter. Well, not a
real grand-daughter, but in fact a young girl that
they helped raise who calls Roberta by her name and
Joe “grandfather”. Her Name is Ellie (a solid
performance by Abby Dillion).

Ellie is a work-from-home editor/writer who has no
true relationships (other than the minimal one with
Roberta and Joe, which will change as the 90 minute
play progresses) until she meets Jonas (played to
perfection by Joel Rodriguez). Jonas also
works from home, and as a person with disability,
has his own emotional problems to deal with. He has
lived a life of rejection and when Ellie “picks him
up” taking him to her home for the night, he finds a
new meaning to life. For her, however, it was just a
“slam-bam” one-nighter and she immediately cuts him
off, emotionally.

As Ellie learns of her pseudo grand-mother’s health
problem and goes to visit with her, her relationship
with Jonas changes as does that with Roberta and
Joe. There are some very emotional scenes in this
small story, and, again, not wanting to give
anything away, let me tell you that the story-line is rich and
very strong as projected by director Matt Hawkins.
One of the problems with a theater such as Red Twist
and its very intimate stage, is using it to the best
advantage. There are many scene changes in this
production, and while the set is fairly simple
(designed by Yeaji Kim) the number of changes makes
it challenging for a director. How much time can we
allow the audience to watch the set change and
retain their focus on the story. In this production,
the changes are done smoothly and without
hesitation, so we never lose sight of where we are
going with both story-lines (or are there three?).

There is another actor in this production. His name
is Collin Quinn
Rice, a newcomer to this company and one that I am
sure we will be seeing more of in the years to
come. He brings to life Angel ( as well as all the
other roles that bring the puzzle pieces together)
. Again, I cannot get into all of his portrayals,
but will gladly tell you that each one is
different from the others and he is a wonderful
spirit on the stage. Welcome to Redtwist!
As we get older, many of us look at the choices we
have previously made and review if they were
correct, or if they are still correct. Is there a
Heaven? Is there an “after-life”? Does the soul go
to a place where it can make sure those left behind
are taken care of? Or, is it all just over?
Brunstetter takes us deep into the inner mind of a
person who is facing the end of their time and her
choices, and are they right?

As someone who has been close to what could have
easily been my end, and seeing what I think may have
been the “light”, I often wonder if any of this is
real. Did I see anything on that fateful night? Was
I in shock? In this story, we have a person who gave
up God and religion due to some failures in her
youth. Married to a new husband, who is also a
non-believer, they enjoy their lives and each other.
When they are faced with changes, how difficult is
it to review their thoughts and maybe see a
different light? The one that tells that they may be
wrong? This is a keenly directed production with
five very skilled actors who truly feel the words of
the playwright.

This is a play that deals with religious belief and
makes it hard to rate, which is why I have only
given it a “recommended”. Perhaps, prior to all this
“critic schtick” that has taken place since “Pass
Over”, I felt that this was enough. There is some
humor in this gut-wrenching story about how one can
look at what was previously decided and realize that
the first choice may not have been what was destined
to be the right one.

Rare is the human being who has not grappled with
the mystery of death and its aftermath. Cultural
speculations on the realms beyond the grave
encompass simple regression to the earth ( as
observed in animals ) and regeneration ( as observed
in plants ), as well as elaborate recycling schemes
involving transmigration into altered physical
states. Christianity, however, promises its
believers eternal liberation from corporal
restraints within a mythic sanctuary—descriptions of
which differ widely, no first-hand witness accounts
ever having been reported.

Roberta and Joe have enjoyed 30 years of marriage,
comfortable in their atheist rejection of
conventional dogma, but attendance at the funerals
endemic to their age bracket brings them into
ever-increasing proximity with Protestant Christian
gospel lore. One day, while undergoing an MRI for
what will turn out to be cancer, Roberta has a
momentary vision of a boyish concierge offering her
entry into a domain he identifies as heaven. This
precipitates a crisis of um, faith as Roberta
contemplates the possibility of a future bereft of
her beloved husband—misgivings shared by her
granddaughter Ellie, whose recent
love-at-first-sight epiphany also introduces
uncertainty over the wisdom of investment in
ephemeral joys.

Fiction exploring the boundaries of mortality tends
to avoid knotty theological arguments in favor of
whimsical fancies cobbled from a melange of
spiritual hearsay. Bekah Brunstetter refuses to
traffic in harps, wings or angels from Dubuque
dancing on pins, though, instead zeroing in on the
fundamental question of where we go after we leave
here. The answer, it emerges, lies not in any
particular sectarian creed, but in each individual's
personal bliss. For Roberta, the paradise awaiting
her is a place of favorite smells, sounds, foods—all
the ice cream she wants—and eventually Joe, too,
once he discovers where to look for her.

Even a cosmological approach as rational and
egalitarian as Brunstetter's could quickly succumb
to sticky sentimentality in the wrong hands, but
director Matt Hawkins never allows his actors to
engage in stereotypal cuddliness, whether of the
geriatric, millennial or ambisexual varieties. Kathleen Ruhl and Art
Fox anchor an ensemble making the most of
Redtwist's tiny studio space ( no easy task
when stage furnishings include a laptop screen, a
hospital bed and a motorized wheelchair ) to invoke
a cozy intimacy belying the weighty issues under
scrutiny.

As Bekah Brunstetter’s play “Going to a Place Where
You Already Are” begins, Roberta and Joe, two
dyed-in-the-wool atheists, exchange sarcastic
comments as they suffer through the church funeral
of a workplace acquaintance of Joe. Trying to sum up
his deceased wife’s life in his eulogy, the offstage
widower does the best he can, ending with, “That
woman could bake.”

It’s a funny-sad-real moment, pointing to the play’s
subtext: the inability of postmodern,
technology-addicted humanity to deal in any
meaningful way with mortality. In a relentlessly
positive and pragmatic culture, death remains the
big bummer, the lemon that can’t be turned into
lemonade. Death for us is not only tragic, it’s
downright awkward.

In the world of “Going to a Place,” death—like
religion—is treated basically as a bad joke, until
it confronts Roberta in the form of late-stage
cancer. Not only is she dying but she’s also having
visions of eternal bliss, complete with a youthful
and somewhat anxious angel (Collin Quinn Rice).
“There’s been a mistake,” insists Roberta to the
angel. “Neither my husband nor I believe in heaven.”

But the visions recur, to the exasperation of her
implacably rational husband, who cloaks his denial
in endless busyness. Roberta’s sudden atheistic
apostasy also affects her step-granddaughter Ellie, an unhappy,
commitment-phobic millennial (played with twitchy
intensity by Abby Dillion) in an ambivalent
relationship with the physically challenged but
emotionally solid Jonas (Joel Rodriguez, who gives
his all to this sympathetic but static part).

The first seventy-five minutes or so of this
ninety-minute, sans-intermission play flow nicely, as Kathleen Ruhl, an
actress who defines the concept of stage presence,
draws us into Roberta’s initial perplexity and
growing sense of confidence and acceptance. Director Matt Hawkins
gives a tangy, lifelike quality to the interplay
between Roberta and Art Fox’s Joe, as the
couple struggles not only with impending loss but
also with Joe’s dawning realization that he doesn’t
know his wife at all—and that she knows him all too
well. The couple’s pointed and passionate dialogue
succeeds as both character study and drama of ideas.

Unfortunately, the final scenes disrupt the play’s
delicate structure. Tension gives way to
sentimentality as Roberta nears her reward and
heaven—looking like a set from an Olsen Twins TV
special—is revealed. It’s pure syrupy
wish-fulfillment, which confusingly seems to confirm
Joe’s position on faith while simultaneously
contradicting it. The bottom-line lesson to be drawn
here is that in drama, as in life, endings are never
easy.